


Rise all green / from the waves again

by duckmoles



Series: the journey home [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Future Fic, Gen, Immortality, Past Character Death, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), that tag encompasses all of my thor fics, thor is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 22:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15760647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckmoles/pseuds/duckmoles
Summary: Seventy years later, Thor returns to Earth.





	Rise all green / from the waves again

It is not quite the end of the world. It will not be the end of the world for some time. Thor inhales, exhales. It feels like the start.

-

Thanos is the biggest thing any of them have ever experienced, up to that point. At the end of it, Thor is left eyeless, homeless, but not quite friendless. He stays on Earth for as long as he can bear, which is never very long, and then heads to the stars, Earth’s latest astronauts following close behind.

He tries not to feel the passage of time sliding by as he hops from planet to planet, fighting where he must and talking where he can, but it rolls over him like a wave, and when he looks up to breathe again seventy Earth years has passed, and Thor is staring down at Stormbreaker, feeling the magic – the magic of Heimdall, of the Bifrost – course through him. He says goodbye to Gamora and Quill’s daughter and Groot, with whom he’d been travelling with for the last few years, brings what trinkets he can, and lets the Bifrost overwhelm him until he’s standing on a field on Earth, lightning and ozone crackling around him.

He makes his way to the nearest city, asking around until he finds someone he knows – or rather, until they find him, since word of his arrival spreads quickly enough that before he knows it he stands in front of a nearly unchanged Steve Rogers, stepping forward for a hug. All these years, and they haven’t forgotten him.

Rogers leads him into the new Avengers base – still going strong – and shows him around. The base is small, barely worth a passing glance, and Rogers explains that the main one is on Mars, and most of the new Avengers are stationed there. The old guard, those that are left, are too attached to Earth.

“Tony’s dead,” Rogers says, slowing as they reach a small room. “In his sleep, they said. There was nothing anyone could’ve done about it.” His tone implies that he had tried.

They step into the room. It looks like the Collector’s collection, filled with memorabilia and souvenirs, except the place feels warm and soothing, like stepping into a hot bath. To Thor’s right is a row of Stark’s armors. The walls are decorated with hundreds of pictures: Iron Man flying through a New York Thor doesn’t recognize; Hawkeye perched on the edge of a building, bow tensed; Rogers helping a small child out from the window of a bus; Black Widow running through the streets, a dark blur of red and black; even Thor himself, his hammer a blur as he swings it in his hand.

Thor’s memory of Stark is bleak. He listens to Rogers reminisce warmly, talk about the battles they won together and the enemies they defeated in the decades that he’s been gone, and briefly regrets his decision to leave. The thought flickers out as quickly as it had come.

“Clint’s on Mars right now,” Rogers continues. “He thought about going further out into space, but stepped one foot inside a spaceship and decided he was too old for the whole thing. He’s retired, technically, but he helps everyone train. There’s a girl who’s taken up the Hawkeye mantle – you should see her shoot. Nothing like it, except for Clint of course.”

Rogers wears the burden of long life poorly, Thor can tell. Thor made his own peace with it long ago. Rogers’s stories are half nostalgia, half desperation, the battle against Galactus, tinged with a kind of frenzy.

“My friend,” Thor says, clapping a hand on his back during a break where they wander over to the kitchen to eat, “it’s good to see you.”

Rogers smiles. There are few new wrinkles to his face. There’s two grey hairs clinging to the back of his neck, but he moves with strength, purpose. “And you,” he says in return.

Thor stays.

He sees Rogers, Banner, Romanoff, and a few of the younger ones around the base from time to time, but he mostly keeps to himself. He explores the surrounding areas, travels to New York and London, Paris and Dubai, Tokyo and Rome, the cities that before he’s never had a chance to stop at, to enjoy. He sees footprints of the Avengers everywhere he goes: the rowdy coffee shops crowded with tourists in the shadow of an Iron Man statue, a Zen Whoberi family touring the Avengers museum housed in Stark Tower, which is dwarfed by the surrounding landscape, the Kree hawkers in the streets selling merchandise plastered with painfully inaccurate renderings of Humanity’s Mightiest.

He is recognized once, by an Asgardian leading her partner and child through the sights. Thor notices Alfhild easily (he recognizes all of the Asgardians remaining, which number too few to even bear thinking about), and they strike up a conversation.

Alfhild’s child is half Asgardian, half Krylorian, smile beaming from her pale pink skin as she asks, “Are you really _Thor_?”

Thor hefts her up, tosses her in the air a few times to prove it.

When they part, Alfhild leans in close to Thor. She tells him that the Asgardians dwelling on Earth are well taken care of, that they have families, that they still celebrate the old festivals and feasts. “Don’t be a stranger,” she says, brown eyes shining. Her hair falls down her back, braided the same way her daughter’s is. (Before the fall of Asgard, Thor would never have even glanced at her.)

“I won’t,” he promises.

That night, he eats dinner while sitting with Natasha Romanoff. The newer Avengers seem intimidated by him.

Romanoff watches him as she eats her pasta, quiet. She’s aged, but not in the way a normal human would. Her hair is half-white, her face lined, but she still moves gracefully, if slower, as if any moment Hawkeye and Iron Man will stride out into the kitchen and complain about the coffee.

“I met an Asgardian today,” Thor says, trying to fill the silence. Romanoff leaves him off-kilter. Rogers, he can understand, but Romanoff is a different beast entirely. “She said they lead happy lives now.”

Romanoff shrugs. “They live their lives. Move on. It’s what anyone would do.”

“Yes,” Thor says. He remembers the coldness of space. The darkness. For the first time in a long time, he thinks of Asgard – the shining city. He misses Loki. Heimdall. His father. His mother.

Romanoff’s mouth quirks up in an expression that doesn’t quite make it to a smile. “Steve’s heading back today with the newest recruits,” she says. “We’re celebrating their first completed mission. You’re welcome to join in.” She stands up, holding her empty plate.

That evening, Thor steps into the common room to hear the sounds of laughter and chatter – Steve making dinner, Natasha talking with the newest recruits, Bruce and his young protégé conversing quietly in a corner. The room quiets when he enters, but Steve turns around to smile warmly at him before returning to his task. Natasha gestures for him to come closer.

“I have a few people who want to meet you,” she says.

The young ones have bright, gleaming eyes, shifting with excitement and nervousness as they try not to stare at him.

Thor stays. 

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> the only thing i can do while stressed is write sad thor fics, apparently


End file.
